Loopt To Work In The Background On iPhone — Loopt, a location-based social networking service, will be the first third-party iPhone service to work in the background while the app is not running. — Via a deal with AT&T, and with your permission, Loopt will be able to access your location …

Google China President Kai-Fu Lee to Resign — Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google Inc.'s China operations, is resigning from the company, according to two people familiar with the matter. — He will be succeeded internally by another Google executive, according to one of the people familiar with the matter …

Samsung: OLED notebooks by late 2010 — Global computing boss targets release a year from now — Samsung says we could get the first commercial OLED laptops a year from now. — Speaking at the official IFA launch of the X-Series and N-Series notebooks and netbooks, Kyu Uhm …

An update on Google Books and privacy — We're excited about the wide range of support that the Google Books settlement has received. Some people have asked how Google's privacy practices apply to Books and the settlement, and, last month, we published an extensive FAQ.

Some News from Android Market — I'm pleased to let you know about several updates to Android Market. First, we will soon introduce new features in Android Market for Android 1.6 that will improve the overall experience for users. As part of this change, developers will be able to provide screenshots …

Techie-Conference Smackdown — An upcoming New York arts and technology event, dubbed the Audience Conference, is scheduled for Nov. 5 and 6, but it's managed to ruffle some techie feathers well in advance. … Several of its speakers, including TechCrunch's Michael Arrington …

RSS Is Alive And Well — Somehow the comments on my “10 Characteristics of Great Companies” post yesterday drifted into the topic of the future of RSS. I was debating whether to wade into this silly debate about whether “RSS is dead” or not and was leaning toward ignoring it.

Four new themes — Posted by Jake Knapp, UI Designer and Manu Cornet, Software Engineer — Manu: Hey Jake, you still using that same old theme? — Jake: Well, yeah. I mean, I like it — but I don't know... I guess it just doesn't feel as new as it used to. — Manu: I hear ya. Well, good news!

Gov 2.0: It's All About The Platform — Editor's note: The following guest post is by Tim O'Reilly, the founder and CEO of computer book publisher O'Reilly Media and a conference organizer. O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 five years ago. Now he is arguing it is time for Gov 2.0 …

Court grants Microsoft's motion to stay Word injunction — Updated 9:55 a.m., Sept. 4: Added a response from i4i. — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has granted Microsoft's motion to stay an injunction that would prohibit the software giant from selling Word.

How Team of Geeks Cracked Spy Trade — PALO ALTO, Calif. — From a Silicon Valley office strewn with bean-bag chairs, a group of twenty-something software engineers is building an unlikely following of terrorist hunters at U.S. spy agencies. — One of the latest entrants …

First Snow Leopard Update Hits Developers [Seed Notes] — Just six days after the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard to the general public, Apple has begun extensive testing of the first update amongst the developer community. — Build 10B503 (a significant step from the shipping 10A403) …

Snow Leopard, Marble, And Calamine Lotion — There are two types of people in the world: Those that hate change, and those that embrace it. I tend to fall into the latter category. And that's why OS X Snow Leopard is an odd product for me. — On one hand, I like the idea that Apple …

Bit.ly Offering Even Shorter ‘J.mp’ URLs — Bit.ly, Twitter's official URL shortening service, is offering even shorter URLs, via a new ‘j.mp’ service. — We just popped open our bit.ly sidebar to send a tweet and got this new URL tool instead. By knocking out two characters from the URL …

Weekly Analysis - PS3 Sales Double in America — PS3 slim boosts hardware sales above Xbox360 and Wii in America as Arkham Asylum has one of the biggest debuts of the year in the weekly charts for the 23rd - 29th August 2009 — The big news this week was the appearance of the new PS3 slim model …

The Social Benefits of the Google Books Settlement — Google's settlement with authors and publishers to gain copyright licenses over millions of books will expand the underprivileged's access to information, a group of professors and civil rights advocates argued Thursday.